Assad regime accused of violating Syria's fragile ceasefire

Countries backing Syria's peace process called an emergency meeting over
reported breaches of the truce implemented just two days ago

Syrian pro-government forces advance on a road through Khanasser, after they reportedly recaptured it from Islamic State fighters on Monday Photo: AFP

By Louisa Loveluck

7:39PM GMT 29 Feb 2016

Syria's main opposition body has warned that the country’s fragile ceasefire was close to collapse as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its Russian backers launched dozens of attacks on strategic locations.

The US and Russian-brokered truce, which does not apply to territory held by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jahbat al-Nusra group, comes as part of the biggest diplomatic push yet to help end Syria's five-year conflict.

Asaad al-Zoubi, who heads the Saudi-backed opposition High Negotiations Committee's delegation, insisted the truce has collapsed before it even started in earnest. "We are not facing a violation of the truce... we are facing a complete nullification," he said. The majority of attacks were carried out by regime-allied forces, monitoring groups said, with most appearing to concentrate on rebel-held territory between the major cities of Homs and Hama.

Children peer from their home in Damascus

Sources inside Syria reported a flurry of activity at government air fields as troops were apparently moved to Aleppo province, where a massive government offensive earlier this month seemed to turn the war definitively in Assad’s favour. A convoy of some 100 vehicles was also spotted moving towards frontlines in the western province of Homs.

The cessation of hostilities, the first of its kind since the war began in 2011, is intended as a confidence-building measure and international backers hope it can pave the way for a resumption of Syria's faltering peace process.

But Mr Zoubi said there were "no indicators" that the ground was being prepared for peace talks, which the United Nations has said it plans to reconvene on March 7.

International monitors were more circumspect, insisting the truce was mostly holding. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said it had observed a massive decrease in the number of flashpoints and civilian casualties.

Rebel fighters rest in Bala on Sunday

Syria’s war has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history with a death toll so high that the United Nations has stopped counting. One recent estimate put that figure at almost half a million.

In Aleppo, Homs and Damascus, civilians said the respite brought relief. “My daughter celebrated her third birthday outside today, can you imagine that? It was the first time we’ve let her run in the street,” said Omar Hakem, an engineer in Aleppo city. “No one thinks this break will last, but I was happy to give my girl one happy day.

Aid trucks carrying non-food items such as blankets on Monday entered Mouadamiya, a suburb of Damascus under siege by government forces where men, women and children have died of starvation. Underscoring the severity of sieges across the country, a senior UN official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said last night that thousands more Syrians could yet starve if the blockades - most enforced by Assad’s forces - were not lifted.

In western Homs, where regime troops have prevented food and medical supplies from reaching some 105,000 people, doctors said they were in desperate need of medicine for children and the elderly.

Although the ceasefire has already confounded a host of pessimistic forecasts, there is little faith on the ground or among the international community that it will last.

“That Syrians who would otherwise have been killed, maimed, traumatised and terrorised in recent days are instead tending to their children and celebrating life is a situation that must not be minimised,” said Frederic Hof, a former special adviser on Syria to the Obama administration. “But it absolutely must be something more than a temporary stay of execution.”